This deck was inspired in some way by Caleb Durward, in his UR Welder Stone combo deck. The deck focuses on the highly competitive,
Grindstone
& Painter's Servant combo. Both cards being colorless artifacts allow the deck to be flexible and play some of the best cards of the Legacy format in Brainstorm, Force of Will, and Lion's Eye Diamond. As Mr. Durward mentions in his article, these cards allow some broken starts, going off generally T2 or T3 with Force backup. This deck has quite a few changes from his list however, splashing black to utilize cards like Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Baleful Strix, and Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast to attack from a different vector and counter hate. I've named the deck because of the primary two win conditions being Painter's Servant & Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. If you want information on card choices, scroll down to the Combo section below, but let me tell you why you want to play this deck in Legacy.
TOP IS BANNED, PAINTER IS DEAD?
(New) - Well here's the thing. We lost a fantastic card which synergized with every corner of the deck in
Sensei's Diving Top
. We utilized Top to better effect than even Miracles, as we used it for card filtering, a draw engine with Goblin Welder, and an artifact with Trinket Mage, Mox Opal, and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. With all of that though - Classic Miracles is out of the metagame. That means less Counterbalance locks, less maindeck Abrupt Decay, and nearly no Null Rods running around. There's also a chance that Stoneblade control ticks up which does a great job at controlling decks that run Emrakul. Yes, Stoneblade is a tough matchup, but Emrakul is worse. The worst issue with the banning is not the loss of Top, but the fact that 50% of all decks in the current meta as of 6/1 are running 2 Surgical Extraction in the board.
WHY GRIXIS PAINTER RATHER THAN OTHER COMBO (S&S, Storm, Elves)
This is an incredibly complex deck to play (not as complex as storm) which rewards you for knowledge of legacy. Nearly all of the games come down to choices and what you need to play around. I've won a couple games on T1, more on T2, most on T3, and a number on T28. So why play painter instead of other popular Tier 1 combo decks? First off, I'm biased, but also this is a Tier 2 deck (some can argue lower, I would not), but the deck wins almost all of its Game 1's, similar to dredge. This because graveyard hate and artifact hate aren't maindeckable in Legacy, and Welder provides resilience. Your opponents have almost no maindeck answers for your combo, unlike other combo decks that are weak to
Karakas
, Force of Will, Deathrite Shaman, etc. The deck also has an incredible combo matchup (except vs Emrakul decks), as it is faster than every competitive combo deck in the format. The deck can also play slow post-board, is highly versatile, and occasionally feels like a Tezzeret deck after board.
Bringing my bias into the mix: I play this deck and love it more than any deck in any format for one reason - Goblin Welder. Welder is one of the most underrated cards in Legacy and this deck harnesses him unlike any other. He is absurd with Intuition, providing support/resilience for your combo by letting you recur pieces. Losing Sensei's Divining Top in Legacy hurts him a little, but Nihil Spellbomb and Baleful Strix provide ample targets for a draw engine. Opponents are generally confused by Welder, not in that they don't know what he does, but more that they don't realize how you'll use him. They consistently misplay Abrupt Decay and Pithing Needle, and the way that the deck as a whole challenges your opponent actually makes many games a lot of fun for both players. Welder is also powerful swapping your opponent's equipment mid combat, getting rid of a troublesome chalice, or resetting an Aether Vial. For this reason, save your Forces for artifacts to send them to the graveyard!
Grixis Painter is considered to be a lower tier deck but mostly because people don't play it. It is, however, very capable of taking a tournament by storm. This deck will make you a better player and you need to learn from it and from your opponents.
THE COMBO
Grindstone
(4): Combo piece #1 and your primary win condition which allows you to mill a player's entire library once their deck is all one color. Also can be used to place cards in your own graveyard for value to recur with Goblin Welder.
Painter's Servant (4): Combo piece #2 and your primary enabler. Painter makes all cards in play, in hand, and libraries for both players all one color of your choice. Game 1 preference is to choose blue as it has synergies with many main deck card choices, like Force of Will & Pyroblast. Don't name blue if your opponent may have their own Force, and never name blue post-board against a deck with red blast effects, unless you plan on blowing up their red mana lands.
FAST MANA
Lion's Eye Diamond (1-4): Allows you to go off as early as turn 1 and more reliably on turn 2. LED can be cracked for mana with a Grindstone & Painter in play and the mana can be used to activate Grindstone immediately. Can be cracked in response to a tutor (Intuition) to float mana, or can be used to place a combo piece from your hand into your graveyard to be abused with Welder. Many UR painter players only play 1 LED to fetch with Trinket Mage or Intuition. I think this is far inferior as more LEDs help to turn on Mox Opal's metalcraft ability on T1.
Mox Opal (3-4): Opal is more powerful here than it is in Modern Affinity. Artifact lands and LED easily enable T1 Metalcraft, thus giving you 2 mana to work with on T1. Casting a
Grindstone
and Goblin Welder on T1 is extremely powerful. It's also essential for the black splash. It makes your mana easier and your deck more resilient to Wasteland.
Ancient Tomb (2-4) & City of Traitors (0-1): Allows you to play turn 1 painter / grindstone & another artifact to turn on opal to play a welder or a brainstorm. I used to play more of these lands, but the banning of Sensei's Divining Top gives you less to do on T1 with 2 colorless mana. They do however, give you the rare but powerful draw of 2 sol-lands, painter, grindstone, force of will, blue card to play and activate grindstone on T2 with force backup. The heavier black splash you have in the main and side really determine how many of these you can run.
TUTORS
Intuition (2-4): Instant speed tutor for (Grindstone, Painter, & LED) to be abused with Welder. More common is to tutor for 3 copies of a single missing piece or 3 Force of Will to handle a must-counter threat. Auto-include with Welder, but certainly is one of the first cards to cut from the main if facing a deck that boards in Surgical Extraction (which is most of them).
Transmute Artifact (1-2): Finds your missing combo piece and has great synergy with Welder. The main need for Transmute is the ability to put a Grindstone into play when a Chalice of the Void is in play with 1 counter (which stops you from casting Welder & Grindstone & Pyroblast & your cantrips)
Trinket Mage (1-2): allows you to use a toolbox strategy, most importantly fetching
Grindstone
for the combo, Mox Opal, Great Furnace (for mana fixing), Nihil Spellbomb (for draw engine/GY hate), and Pithing Needle and Engineered Explosives out of the board for hate.
CARD DRAW & ENGINES
Brainstorm (4): it's the most played card in legacy, you play one drops, shuffle effects and force, so brainstorm is near at its best in this build.
Ponder (2-4): Replacement after the Top banning. It's been a fine replacement.
Baleful Strix (1-2): It's an artifact, it's blue, it synergizes with Goblin Welder. It's fantastic in this deck.
Goblin Welder (4): Primary purpose is to protect the combo and recur pieces. Bolting or Decaying a painter is small game when you can weld it back at instant speed. He works extremely well with your artifact lands. His synergy with Intuition is busted as it's like drawing a card and putting 2 into play. Transmute Artifact acts like a weak
Tinker
and Entomb when welder is out. The reason he is in the engines section is because of his synergy with Baleful Strix and Nihil Spellbomb. Welder with either of those provides so much incremental advantage while holding the board or gaining card advantage that many decks will struggle to keep up.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas (1-3): Tezz gives the deck an alternate win condition and helps find combo pieces. He's more powerful than Jace, the Mind Sculptor in this deck, is difficult to remove for many decks and can win the game by himself, very quickly.
PERMISSION & PROTECTION
Pyroblast (0-4): Blast can either be the best card in your deck (if you have painter in play naming blue), or completely dead. A one mana instant speed Vindicate is incredible, but painter is a lightning rod for removal. I prefer to start with 1-2 and board up to 4 if I'm playing a combo deck, blue deck, or a deck that has access to some hard to handle threats/lock pieces.
Force of Will (4): It's a legacy staple for a reason. The fact that you can pitch lands or dead cards to it when painter is naming blue is even more advantage. This gives you game against any deck in legacy and we are one of the fastest decks to be able to play it.
Nihil Spellbomb (1): This is main decked only because you can't mill an opponents deck if they have an eldrazi like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in it. Spellbomb protects your combo by letting you mill the entire deck with painter/stone and respond to the emrakul shuffle trigger by exiling their yard. With 4 Goblin Welder, spellbomb is a great card and interacts well as a draw engine in a grindy game.
Ensnaring Bridge (0-1): Maindecked because some decks literally have no answer for it Game 1. It also helps to buy you a turn vs Show & Tell decks, which is very relevant. Be aware of Deathrite Shaman and Noble Hierarch still dealing damage under the bridge.
Goblin Welder - Already mentioned but helps recur combo pieces.
THE LANDS
Fetches work well with Brainstorm and the mana difficulties of a 3-color deck. Targets are diverse to support the 3 color deck, with a couple basics to handle Blood Moon and Wasteland. Artifact lands work well with welder, tezzeret, transmute, and opal. Sol-lands support the combo and make you absurdly fast.
My current numbers are 3 Sol Lands (2 Ancient Tomb, 1 City of Traitors), 4 Artifact Lands (3 Seat of the Synod, 1 Great Furnace), 6 Fetches (4 Polluted Delta, 2 Scalding Tarn / Bloodstained Mire, 2 Basics (Island & Swamp), 4 Duals (2 Volcanic Island, 1 Underground Sea, 1
Badlands
.
DECK WEAKNESSES
This deck plays a lot of artifacts, which sadly get hit by incidental sideboard cards, and some cards are such hosers, that we have to adapt to it. In order of terrifying, here we go:
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: While we have an answer for Emrakul, just his presence in the deck means that another combo piece is required in Nihil Spellbomb. Spellbomb isn't hard to find, but requires an extra turn to pull off the Painter/Stone combo which is time that you can't afford vs a deck will usually kill you by cheating Emrakul into play.
Surgical Extraction: It might just cause you to scoop if you board out Tezzeret and fat creatures. It hurts welder, which is one of the best cards in your deck, and can leave you on the manual grindstone plan (though this works VERY well against the Unexpected Miracles deck). Instant speed and phyrexian mana make this a truly broken and unfortunate card to fight against. Tezzeret doesn't care as much about this, but you do have to be careful not to have Tezz countered.
Pithing Needle & Phyrexian Revoker: Both will turn off your grindstone usually. They can also attack your Tezzeret or Welder also. Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast is your best answer for this out of the board. The best strategy is to stress your opponent so that their naming is not effective.
Null Rod: There is no card worse than this since there's still a lot more game left to play. Thankfully it sees less play now with the Top banning. It shuts off our grindstone combo, artifact lands, mox opal, and sadly makes nearly all cards in our deck useless. Tezz is an important card to lean on when facing a deck that you suspect may have null rod.
Leyline of Sanctity: And any other cards that grants hexproof. It's hard to interact with being an enchantment. It shuts off the grindstone combo, Intuition, as well as Tezz's ultimate, making it very hard to win, except through a Tezz 5/5 beatdown plan. Our only removal for this is landing a painter naming blue and finding a pyroblast. Sideboard, you have access to Engineered Explosives, which you can activate for 4 with your moxen and 3 color mana base.
Chalice of the Void: A staple in prison decks, this set to 1 counter actually shuts off us casting many cards in the deck, particularly Grindstone, Pyroblast, and Welder. Thankfully Transmute Artifact helps to address this weakness since you can tutor for Grindstone, but we only have 1-2. Chalice on 0 also shuts off our opals and LEDs, which can be frustrating.
Krosan Grip: This card is annoying and very good against our combo, as the only way to interact with it, is to wait for resolution and weld back in what it destroyed. Without a welder, this is a difficult card to deal with. Thankfully with Top out of the metagame, this card should see less play.
Green Sun's Zenith: It's not really the zenith that's so worrying, but what it produces. Usually a Qasali Pridemage, or Reclamation Sage comes out. These aren't too bad, but with ways to recur their effects, things get difficult.
Wirewood Symbiote
is the killer if they already have the Sage in hand.
CURRENT SIDEBOARD
3x Thoughtseize - A recent addition to the sideboard, but in an unknown meta where combo may reign supreme, Thoughtseize is your best countermeasure. It's also great versus control and delver decks.
1x Engineered Explosives - necessary catch all helpful versus tokens, Chalice of the Void and any other annoying permanent. Trinket Mage package. Against token based strategies, it can be recurred with welder on 0 counters.
2x Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast - This card was made for this deck. Use #1 - Destroy Null Rod, Phyrexian Revoker, Pithing Needle,
Umezawa's Jitte
. Use #2 - Destroy problematic creatures like Deathrite Shaman, Tarmagoyf, Delver of Secrets
, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. Use #3 - Put up an artifact wall of defenders to kill with the Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas ultimate
1x Pithing Needle - helpful versus combo decks with Dark Depths, Sneak Attack, Deathrite Shaman, Equipment, etc. Trinket Mage package
2x Pyroblast - great versus any blue deck, especially those with Force of Will, bring them all in! Remember against blue/red decks that may also have these cards, do NOT name blue with your painter! These are also critical against combo decks to remove Pithing Needle or Null Rod. Combo decks are too fast for Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast so your red blast effects with a painter out are your primary way of removing hate. Feel free to play Red Elemental Blasts as well to play around Cabal Therapy, though I can't blame you for opting for more pyroblast since it can be played against a non target to dump your hand for Ensnaring Bridge.
2x Spellskite - useful against any deck with targeted removal (i.e. Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decay. Hoser to Infect decks the world over. Also great versus Burn (even though we're faster). Removes a lot of the interactive spells that the opponent can use to win. Having Welder out with Skite is difficult for them to get through.
1x Hope of Ghirapur: This card makes combo & control decks cry, shutting off your opponent's removal for your combo turn. It can also be recurred with Welder. It's possible this should have more slots in the 75 since turning on Mox Opal turn 1 is incredibly powerful.
2x Defense Grid: Must counter threat versus delver decks. Turn off their counters and attack their hand.
1x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas - An alternate win-con, provides a threatening distraction, can take over a game single-handedly, finds combo pieces, provides card advantage. Also relevant in an Abrupt Decay heavy meta.
1x
Inkwell Leviathan
- Being tested as an unanswerable threat that uses a single slot and can win the game after Surgical Extraction removes the Painter/Stone combo.
MAYBEBOARD (more to come)
Torrential Gearhulk: Optional include, but flashing back Intuition, Pyroblast, Brainstorm, or Force of Will is a ton of value. 5/6 is a great stat for handling Batterskull, Gurmag Angler, etc.
Sandstone Oracle: Oh the sphinx, how people underrate you. With LED, Sphinx is a draw 4-5 at instant speed with Welder. Foils flipped delver and cancels out how bad LED is vs control. Also is nice with Transmute Artifact to recoup the card disadvantage. Oh, and he beats down when needed.
